American Dream
by masterctarl
Summary: Fallout New Vegas/Hetalia Crossover - The Courier of the Mojave, Theo, hears rumors of a strange young man haunting around the wasteland outside of New Vegas. Curious, he goes to have a look. What he finds is nowhere near what he expected. But this young man, this Alfred... there seems to be much more to him than what he initially seems. Rated for language. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3 belong to Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Studios. Hetalia and all of its incarnations belongs to Hidekaz Himeruya. The only thing in this I technically own is Theo, only because I created him as my Courier in Fallout New Vegas. As a game mechanic, he still technically belongs to Obsidian Entertainment.**

 **Note:** Being as this entire thing happens from the third-person POV of Theo, things pertaining to the mechanics of Hetalia's universe and how the Countries as a whole work will not be made completely clear in this. I actually made it as a bit of a spinoff to another work I want to do involving the European Hetalians after the events of the Fallout disaster. That specifically is on a bit of hiatus, due to me working on a million things at once. However, I wanted to get this one out before Fourth of July. Since America has become kind of isolated since the bombings, I wanted to highlight a bit of what happened to our dear, sweet Alfred since then. This story is very bittersweet, I'm warning you now.

 **American Dream**

It was an oddly peaceful night in the middle of the desert. Theo noticed that even the critters stayed away as he clasped another jutting rock. He knew it was insane to climb this cliff-face. This was precisely why he didn't bring Arcade. The last thing he needed was the doctor grumbling at him about how stupid this was, and how he was going to break his neck.

But Theo had to do this. He had to see the man everyone was talking about.

By the time he was clinging to the top of the cliff his breath had become short and his muscles ached. What anyone was doing all the way up there, he hadn't a clue. Maybe Theo would ask him. Whenever he could feel his lungs again.

The Courier huffed loudly, looking over at the young man sitting on the edge. He hadn't moved an inch as the light of dusk faded. He was young, didn't look far out of his teens, with dusty blond hair. His old, tattered bomber jacket rustled in the wind as Theo made his way over to the be-speckled youth. The red-head pulled his cowboy hat off as he flopped down, fanning himself with it.

"I didn't think you'd climb the whole thing."

Theo jumped as the other man spoke. He teetered a moment on the edge before leaning back to catch his balance. Blue eyes were watching him. His own hazel ones met them. There was something strangely familiar about him. Despite his youth the blond felt… timeless.

"Who are you?" Theo finally asked.

"Did you climb all this way to ask my name?" The boy didn't sound mocking. Simply curious.

"I don't know. I just… wanted to meet you," Theo shrugged.

There was a moment of silence before the answer. "My name is Alfred."

"I'm Theo," the Courier grinned, putting his hat back on. "What are you doing all the way up here, Alfred? How'd you get here? I mean…. Obviously you climbed, but…"

Alfred chuckled, though it was a dry laugh. "You remind me of what I used to be like a long time ago. I got up here the same way you did, though. Determination. Stubbornness. It's the American way."

Theo snorted. "Isn't the American way a myth by now?"

The young man cringed. "I guess it it…" he muttered, looking back to the horizon. "Maybe that's for that best. Look where it got us."

The red-head cocked an eyebrow, rubbing his whiskered chin. "What would it matter to you? You're still young. Not like anyone still remembers what it all meant. People pretend, but it's all smoke out the ass. It's all NCR and Enclave and whoever the fuck wants to claim it all now."

"You're right… America fucked up. Now people like you have to clean it up."

"You don't talk like anyone I've met before. And considering the messed up people I deal with, I didn't think that was possible."

"There aren't a lot of people like me left in the world," Alfred shook his head. "Well, I guess I can't say that for sure. Maybe they _are_ out there somewhere. Maybe they survived. I dunno, all I know is… it's kind of lonely without them." He leaned back and grinned. That smile looked different. Genuine, accentuating his youthful appearance. "We were always fighting, and sometimes we didn't like each other much, but we were kind of a big family. Most of us didn't want to admit it, but we really did need each other. I actually really miss Arthur constantly trying to get a rise out of me and then bickering endlessly with Francis. And even though we were always fighting up until the end, I liked Ivan's smile and the fact that Yao never acted his age. And of course Matthew would always be right there, trying to get our attention but inevitably just giving up and falling asleep and I'd have to carry him home." His smile faltered and turned wistful. "I wish I had one more chance to see him. To tell him how sorry I am for everything I let the Bosses do to him." He raised a hand and stared at it. "I should have held onto him tighter… I told myself I wasn't going to let go…"

Theo felt confused. Lost. As if Alfred was holding a conversation with someone else, but he couldn't see them thus was only hearing his half.

After a moment, as if sensing the man's plight, the blond looked up and smiled again. "Well, past is in the past, right? All we can do is keep going forward. The new kids are getting stronger every day. Kind of a messed up bunch, but aren't we all?" He let out a laugh and leaned back. "All I can do anymore is sit and watch it all go by now."

"I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about, Albert."

"I know," the young man chuckled, bringing his legs up from their dangle and crossing them. He leaned forward and continued to watch the sunset as he rested his elbows on his knees. "Don't mind me, just the ramblings of an Old Age."

"You're younger than I am," Theo scoffed. He then paused, looking back at the blond. Now that he was really looking, observing him closely, he saw it. Wrinkles crackling the corners of his eyes and mouth. Gentle flecks of grey in his dirty-blond hair. He shook his head and blinked, and they were gone. The other man seemed to teeter between youthfulness and old age. "Aren't you?" the Courier managed, confused by what he was seeing.

Alfred looked back to him and smiled. "I haven't been young since I kicked Arthur out of here," he laughed, standing up. He stretched a bit and sighed, looking wistful again. "It's funny. I spent my life trying to convince myself, and everyone else, that I knew what I was doing. That I was always right. I was the big guy in the room, the person everyone could turn to if they needed me." He turned away from the sun as it dipped beyond the horizon. "…I was the hero…"

While he still wasn't completely sure what was going on with the strange man he'd climbed up to talk to, Theo felt he could understand that at least. He did what he could to help people. And sometimes Theo wondered if he was making the right choices. He wanted to be the one who saved New Vegas. But really, who was he to decide what was best for a place he'd only called his home for a couple of years now? Who was to say that Mr. House wasn't right? Or the Brotherhood, or the Enclave?

"It's hard, isn't it?" Alfred asked, looking back at him as if reading his mind. "Deciding what's fair, I mean. Listening to a bunch of men who all want different things saying they know what's best. But you just keep listening, because… hey, they're the Boss." He paused and stared at the ground behind him. "…sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I said 'no'. We all did things we weren't proud of sometimes, just because the Bosses said we had to."

"You never did? Not even once?" Theo asked in surprise. "What if they asked you to do something you knew was wrong?"

"It was…" the blond tried to search for the right words, but struggled. He walked back over and knelt down next to the redhead. "It's complicated. That wasn't how we worked. We embody the will, and the will may not like the system but it still follows it. I only knew it was wrong at the back of my mind, because there were a few people who were willing to stand up to it. But as long as the majority thought the system knew what it was doing…" He trailed off at the confused look Theo was giving him. "I… I don't know how to explain it. I've tried over and over and…" He made a frustrated sound, straightening back up and kicking a rock off the cliff. "The woman from the Vault in the Wastes didn't understand either. How can you? You're all just…" He sighed again, pushing his cracked glasses up and rubbing his eyes. He seemed to be aging again, looking sickly as he did. His skin ashened and greened a bit, hair greying quickly.

"...what are you?" Theo finally asked.

The now elderly man looked at him a moment more and then smiled lightly. He placed his glasses upon his nose again and stepped back towards the edge. "Now? …I'm nothing. Just a weakened, old dream everyone forgot…"

"Whoa… HEY, WAIT!"

Before Theo could stop him, Alfred bent his knees and jumped backwards off the cliff. He ran to the edge, unsure if he was hoping to reach the man before he got too far, but stopped dead as he witnessed… he wasn't sure exactly what.

Just as quickly as he had aged, Alfred regained his youth as he arced through the air. He descended the great distance, one that surely would kill even the sturdiest of men, quickly before flipping smoothly and landing on his feet with a resounding THWUNK of his boots. After a moment in which Theo thought he'd surely shattered every bone in his body, Alfred straightened back up again and strolled away, as if what he had done was perfectly normal.

The redheaded Courier stared after him for a moment before shaking his head and grinning. "I dunno, old man," he said to the distancing figure. "Maybe the dream isn't as dead as we think it is."


End file.
